At a total cost of twenty-five dollars, Mr. Wallingford made himself a Prince of the Blood at the church raffle that night, throwing down bills and refusing all change, winning prizes and turning them back to be raffled over again, treating all the youngsters to endless grabs in the "fish pond"; and Jens Jensen proudly introduced him to everybody, beginning with the minister and Emil Kessler – the latter a thin, white-faced man with a high brow, who looked like a university professor and was a shoe-maker – and ending with Doctor Feldmeyer, who came late. Wallingford's eyes brightened when he saw this gentleman. He was more or less of a dandy, was the doctor, and had great polish and suavity of manner. He had not been with Mr. Wallingford five minutes until he was talking of Europe. Mr. Wallingford had also been to Europe. The doctor was very keen on books, on music, on art, on all the refinements of life, also he was very much of a ladies' man, he delicately insinuated, and not one expression of his face was lost upon the Eastern capitalist. It transpired that the doctor was living at Mr. Wallingford's hotel, and they went home together that night, leaving behind them the ineffaceable impression that the rich Mr. Wallingford was an invaluable acquisition to Mr. Klug and his friends, to the community, to the city, to any portion of the globe which he might grace with his presence. But when the invaluable acquisition was left alone in his rooms he penned a long letter to his wife.

"My dear Fanny," he wrote, "come right away. I have in sight the biggest stake I have made yet, in a clean, legitimate deal; and I need your smiling countenance in my business."

He meant more by that than he would have dared to tell her, but he laughed and mused on Doctor Feldmeyer as he sealed the letter; then he sent it out to be mailed and turned his earnest attention to the inside of his sales recorder. This time he found the one little point for which he had been looking: the thing that he knew must be there, and the next morning, bright and early, he drove out to Mr. Klug's shop.

"Mr. Klug, you are in bad," he said with portentous gravity. "Look here." And he pointed out the long, spring-actuated bar which kept all the tickets from dropping back when they sprang up, and released them as others were shot into place. "This is an infringement of the United Sales Recording Machine Company's machine," he declared.

"Nothing like it!" indignantly denied the inventor, bristling and reddening and puffing his cheeks.

"The identical device is in every machine they manufacture," insisted Wallingford; "and I would bet you all you expect to make that before you're on the market two days they will have an injunction out against you on that very point. Now let me show you how we can get around it."

Mr. Klug reluctantly and protestingly followed his mechanical idea, a logical application of the pneumatic principle, as he made it plain by sketches and demonstration on the machine.

"Another thing," went on Mr. Wallingford. "It occurs to me that all these little pistons multiply the chances of throwing your machine out of order. Why don't you make one compressible air chamber to actuate all the ticket pistons and to be actuated by all the keys, the keys also opening valves in the ticket pistons? It would save at least five dollars on each machine, make it simpler and much more practical. Of course, I'll have to patent this improvement, but I'll turn it over to you at practically no cost to the company."

Mr. Klug merely blinked. Six long years he had worked on this invention, following the one idea doggedly and persistently, and he had thought that he had it perfect. He had all the United Company's patents marked in his copies of the patent record, and now he went through the more basic ones one after the other.

"It is not there," he said in triumph, after an hour's search, during which Wallingford patiently waited. One book he had held aside, and now he put his finger quietly upon a drawing in it.

"No," he admitted, "not in the form that you have used it; but here is the trick that covers the principle, and this patent still has four years to run."

Carl examined it silently. In form the device was radically different from his own, but when he came to analyze it he saw that Wallingford was probably right; the principle had been covered, at least nearly enough to leave a loophole for litigation, and it worried him beyond measure.

"Don't look at it that way," comforted Wallingford. "Only be glad that we found it out in time. I'll apply for this patent right away and assign it to you. All I'll want for it will be a slight credit on the books of the company; say fifteen hundred."

Again Carl Klug blinked.

"I'll let you know this afternoon."

He needed time to figure out this tangled proposition; also he wanted, in simple honor, to talk it over with his friends.

"All right," said Wallingford cheerfully. "By the way, we don't want to form such a big partnership in a lawyer's office, where people are running in and out all the time. I'll provide a room at my hotel. That will be better, don't you think?"

"Sure," slowly agreed Mr. Klug. He was glad to decide upon something about which a decision was easy.

"Can you get word to the others?" asked the promoter. "If not I'll go around and notify them."

"Oh, they're going to meet here. They all live up this way except Doctor Feldmeyer. You see him. I'll bring the lawyer along."

"All right," said Wallingford, quite convinced that a lawyer other than Maylie would be secured, and after he had driven from sight he took out his pocketbook and counted again his available cash.

He had a trifle over six hundred dollars, and in the afternoon he would be expected to pay over the difference between five thousand dollars and the fifteen hundred he was certain would be allowed for his patent. Thirty-five hundred dollars! At the present moment there was no place on earth that he could raise that amount, but nevertheless he smiled complacently as he put up his pocketbook. So long as other people had money, the intricacies of finance were only a pleasant recreation to him, and it was with entire ease of mind that he set the stage for his little drama at the hotel. He had Doctor Feldmeyer to await Carl Klug and his friends in the lobby and conduct them up to a private dining room, where the man of specious ideas, at the head of a long table and strictly in his element, received them with broad hospitality. In his bigness and richness of apparel and his general air of belonging to splendid things, he was particularly at home in this high, beam-ceilinged apartment, with its dark woodwork, its rich tapestry, its stained-glass windows, its thick carpet, its glittering buffet. Around the snowy clothed table were chairs for eight, and at each plate stood a generous goblet. As the first of the visitors filed in, Wallingford touched a button, and almost by the time they were seated a waiter appeared with huge glass pitchers of beer. The coming of this beverage necessarily put them all in a good humor, and there was much refilling and laughing and talking of a purely informal character until Doctor Feldmeyer arose to his feet and tapped with his knuckles upon the table, when deep gravity sat instantly upon the assemblage.

"Since our host is already seated at the head of the table," said the doctor with easy pleasantry, "I move that he be made temporary chairman."

The doctor had lunched with Mr. Wallingford at noon, and now knew him to be a thoroughbred in every respect; a bon vivant who knew good food and good wine and good fellowship; a gentleman of vast financial resources, who did not care how he spent his money just so he got what he wanted when he wanted it; and he was quite willing to vouch for Mr. Wallingford, in every way, upon a gentleman's basis! The election of Mr. Wallingford as temporary chairman and of Doctor Feldmeyer as temporary secretary were most cordial and pleasant things to behold. The lawyer, a dry little gentleman who never ventured an opinion unless asked for it, and always put the answer in his bill, thereupon read the articles of agreement which were to bind these friends in a common partnership, whereby it was understood that Mr. Klug, in virtue of his patents, was to have one half interest in the company, no matter to what size it might be increased, and that the other gentlemen were to put in such money as was needed to carry on the business, each one to share in the profits in exact proportion to the amount of his investment. It appeared to be the unsmiling consensus of the meeting that this agreement was precisely what they wanted, and after it had been read again, very slowly and distinctly, the simply honorable gentlemen interested solemnly signed it. While this little formality was being looked after, with much individual spelling out of the document, word by word, under broad forefingers, the waiter filled the glasses again and Wallingford turned to Mr. Klug.

"By the way," he asked, in a voice low enough to be taken as confidential but loud enough to be heard by those nearest, "have you told the gentlemen about the new patent?"

Jens Jensen, seated next to Mr. Klug, took it upon himself to answer.

"That is all right," he said, nodding his head emphatically. "We know all about that," and a glance at the nodding heads about the table disposed of that question. It was quite understood that Mr. Wallingford was to have a fifteen-hundred-dollar credit for the invaluable addition and correction he had made to their principal asset, the wonderful sales recorder patent.

"Very well, then," said Mr. Wallingford, with a secret relief which he carefully kept out of his voice, "as temporary chairman I would instruct the secretary now to take the list of subscriptions."

A sigh went around the table. This was serious business, the letting go of toil-won money, but nevertheless they would go sturdily through with it. It appeared upon a canvass that Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Jensen and Doctor Feldmeyer and Mr. Wallingford were each prepared immediately to invest five thousand dollars, while Mr. Vogel and Mr. Kessler were each ready to invest two thousand.

"Twenty-four thousand dollars," announced the doctor roundly, whereupon Mr. Wallingford arose.

"Gentlemen," said he, "there is no use to have idle capital. This is more money than we shall need for some time to come, and that is not good business. I therefore propose that the total assessment from any one member at this time be restricted to two thousand dollars. That will allow Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Jensen, Doctor Feldmeyer and myself each to keep three thousand dollars of our money in our savings banks, building associations and other places where it is earning good interest, until the company needs it, which may perhaps be a matter of six months. I would like to have a vote upon this proposition."

There could be but one answer to this. Interest! The savings of all these men throughout their lives had been increased at three, four and scarcely to exceed five per cent. rates, and they had grown to reverence interest almost more than capital. He was a smart man, this Wallingford, to think of the interest!

Money was already appearing from deep pockets when the crabby little lawyer, as if it gave him pain to volunteer information, wrenched from himself the fact that before any money could be paid in some one must be appointed to receive it. Thereupon, though not a corporate association, they held an election, and, naturally, Mr. Klug was made president. Mr. Wallingford firmly declined the vice presidency and also the secretaryship. He might even have had the post of treasurer, but he was too modest, also too busy, to hold office. No, he kindly stated, he would be a mere investor, ready to aid them with what little advice and experience he could give them, and ready to back them to any extent if the time should ever arise when their own finances would prove insufficient to carry the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company on to the undoubted success which awaited it! Thereupon the treasurership was voted to Jens Jensen, and Emil Kessler proposed that they pay in their respective assessments and adjourn. He had two thousand dollars of Carl Klug's money in his pocket, and it made him a trifle uncomfortable.

"I forbid anybody to leave this room," laughingly announced Mr. Wallingford, and gave a nod to the waiter, who disappeared. "We'll pay in our money, but we have some other very important business."

Doctor Feldmeyer also became jolly, to show that he was in the secret. He drew a fountain pen and a check book from his pocket.

"Mr. Wallingford wants us to eat, drink and make merry on the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey," he told them as he wrote.

The joke was thoroughly appreciated. It was a commendable and a holy thing to conspire to get the money of a monopoly away from it, as every newspaper proved to them. In pleasant pursuance of this idea, the United Company, by methods that should proceed in comfort and ease and entire absence of worry, such as was foreshadowed by this luxurious dining room and by the personal grandeur of Mr. Wallingford, was to be brought suppliantly to its knees; so, with the utmost cheerfulness, each of these men paid over his subscription. Doctor Feldmeyer was the only man among them who paid by check. The rest was in cash, but the host, busy with his hospitable duties, held back his payment until the waiters brought in a luncheon which was a revelation in the way of "cold snacks." It was during this appetite-whetting, gayety-promoting confusion that Wallingford quietly paid over his five hundred dollars – this, with the fifteen hundred dollars' credit on the coming patent, making his contribution total to two thousand, the same amount as that put in by every other member of the company except Carl Klug. This done, the clever gentleman surreptitiously wiped his brow and sighed a little sigh all to himself. It had taken him three days to figure how to fasten upon Mr. Klug's patent and prospects with as little money as five hundred dollars!

It was a happy crowd that dispersed an hour later – a crowd upon which Fortune already beamed; but the last of them had scarcely left the room when their princely entertainer telephoned for his own lawyer.

"I want you," said Wallingford to Mr. Maylie, when he arrived, "to find out all you can for me about the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey. I want to know the outcome of every suit they have brought against infringers of their patents, and the present addresses of the people with whom they fought; also all about the companies they have been forced to buy out. Got that?"

"I'll get it," replied Mr. Maylie confidently, and helped himself to a glass of champagne. He looked longingly at the bottle as he finished his first glass, but as Mr. Wallingford did not invite him to have a second he went out.

CHAPTER XV
WALLINGFORD GENEROUSLY LOANS THE PNEUMATIC COMPANY SOME OF ITS OWN MONEY

The arrival of Mrs. Wallingford set upon a much higher plane her husband's already well-established reputation as a capitalist of illimitable resources, and had any one of his partners paused to reflect that Mr. Wallingford had secured an active interest in the concern for five hundred dollars, Doctor Feldmeyer's report of the capitalist's charming lady was enough to make that trifling incident forgotten. To Carl Klug and Jens Jensen at Carl's shop, the doctor, without knowing it, did the missionary work that Wallingford had planned for him to do.

"She is a stunner," he declared, with the faintest suggestion of a smirk, "and carries herself like a queen. She wears a fur coat that cost not less than six or seven hundred dollars, and not a woman in this town has such diamonds. We all went to the theater last night, and there were more opera glasses turned on our box than on the stage. I tell you, our friend Wallingford has the best there is, in women, as well as in wine, and as for wealth, he could buy and sell us all."

"I believe it," said Jens Jensen. "But why should such a rich man go into a little business?"

"Because," said Doctor Feldmeyer, with profound wisdom, "a rich man never overlooks a thousand per cent. like this. That's why they are rich. Why, this man's daily expenses would keep every one of us. He had fine apartments at the hotel himself, but when his wife came he got the best in the house – four fine, big rooms. Last night after the theater he took me to his own dining room, and we had a supper that cost not less than thirty or forty dollars!"

Such gossip would go far to establishing any man's reputation for wealth, especially among such simple natured people as these, and it was quite certain that Otto Schmitt and Henry Vogel and Emil Kessler would hear every scrap of it. Had Doctor Feldmeyer heard the conversation that took place after he left the Wallingford suite the night before, his report might have been slightly different.

"Well, Jim," Mrs. Wallingford had asked with a trace of anxiety, "what are you doing this time?"

"The United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey," he replied with a laugh. "You remember how they turned me down a long time ago when I tried to sell them a patent?" She nodded. "You made me go right to them and try what you called 'straight business,' and I got what was coming to a mollycoddle. I'm going to sell them a patent this time, but in the right way, and for a good, big round chunk."

"Whose patent?" she inquired.

"What's the difference?" he queried, and laughed again. "It serves him right for being an inventor."

She did not laugh with him, however. She sat in frowning disquiet, and he watched her curiously.

"What's the matter with you?" he presently complained. "It used to be enough for you that I could not be jailed for having a few dollars."

"We're nearly middle-aged, Jim," she replied, turning to him soberly. "What will we be like when we are old?"

"Cheer up, Fanny, and I will tell you the worst!" he declaimed. "You'll be gray and I'll be bald!"

She was compelled to laugh herself, and gave up the idea of serious conversation with him, for that time at least.

Doctor Feldmeyer, encouraged by Wallingford, became an unofficial attaché of the family in the following weeks. Vain, susceptible, and considering himself very much of a ladies' man, he exerted himself to be agreeable, and J. Rufus helped him to opportunities. If he had any ulterior purpose in this he did not confide it to his wife, or even let her suspect it. It would not have been safe. In the meantime the affairs of the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company moved speedily onward. One entire end of his shop Carl Klug devoted to its affairs, putting in special machinery and hiring as many men as he could use, and here Wallingford reported every day, his suggestions being nearly always sound and inspiring Mr. Klug's respect. He held his standing with the rest of them in a different way. When they called at the shop they found Wallingford's cab always standing outside, and it was soon noised about that this cab was hired by the day! "Blackie" Daw, levying his dubious contributions on a gullible public, was paying for this and wiping out his debt.

But little more than two months had elapsed when Carl had his first lot of recorders ready for the market, and the treasury was depleted. Now it became necessary to have money for marketing, and that meant the remaining three thousand dollars of J. Rufus Wallingford's subscription or an evasion of it. Prepared for this, he took the floor as soon as the matter was mentioned at the meeting which was called to levy this assessment.

"What is the use?" he demanded to know. "Why use our own money? I understand that Mr. Schmitt must get his three thousand from the building loan association, to which he must pay six per cent. I understand that Mr. Jensen has his now out at five per cent. Let me show you how to finance this concern. I will put in ten thousand at once, and take the company's note. This note I can then discount, and put the money right back into my business, and in that way my ten thousand dollars is doing twenty thousand dollars' worth of work – a bank carrying the burden of both operations."

It was a financial argument entirely new to these men, unused to tricks of money manipulation, and it took them some little time to grasp it. When they did, however, they were as pleased as a boy with his first watch, and Wallingford was a dazzling hero, as, with a nonchalant air, after glancing at the clock to make sure that it was after banking hours, he wrote them a check on "his bank in Boston" for ten thousand, and took their note, signed by the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company and indorsed jointly by all its members.

That night Wallingford drove up in hot haste to Jens Jensen's house.

"Let me see that check I gave you this afternoon," he demanded, with an air of suspecting a good joke on himself. Jens, wondering, produced it from a little tin box. "That's what I thought," said Wallingford as he glanced at it. Then, smiling, he handed it back. "I have made it out on the Fifth National of Boston. They'd probably honor it, but it's the wrong bank. I have a balance there, but am not sure that it is sufficient to cover this check. Just hold that, and I'll wire them in the morning. If my balance isn't large enough I'll give you a check on the First, with which I do most of my business."

"Sure," said Jens, and put back into the tin box the worthless paper which called for ten thousand dollars.

The next morning Wallingford called at one of the local banks and had no difficulty whatever in discounting the quite acceptable note. He gained a full day by forwarding the proceeds, special delivery, to the Fifth National Bank of Boston, where his balance at that moment was considerably less than a hundred dollars; then he told Jensen to deposit the check: that his balance in the Fifth National was all right.

It was financial jugglery of a shrewd order, and the juggler prided himself upon it. He was not yet through, however. Having loaned the company ten thousand dollars of its own money at six per cent. interest, he was now confronted by the necessity of securing money for his own enormous personal expenses. For replenishment, however, he had long planned, and now he went to his new source of income – Doctor Feldmeyer. The time was ripe, for, though Mrs. Wallingford had given him no more encouragement than the ordinary courteous graciousness which is so often misinterpreted by male coquettes, the doctor was aflame with foolish imaginings, and, within the past week or so, had felt guilty upon every meeting with Mr. Wallingford, betraying it as Wallingford had planned that he should, growing nervous at a sharp glance, a sudden movement, an obscure remark. He was as uncomfortable as guilty conscience ever made a coward, and when the big man, on the plea of sudden business and personal needs, went to him almost peremptorily for a loan of rather staggering proportions, the doctor was an easy victim. Thus provided and at ease, Wallingford "consented" to become the salesman for the first output of Pneumatic Sales Recorders, going directly to a list of cities supplied to him by Maylie; and in those cities he went to see certain gentlemen whose names came to him from the same source! Incidentally, he sold a number of sales recorders with a celerity that was most gratifying to the delighted members of the company. Why, even if the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey did not care to buy them out, a fortune was in sight through the legitimate manufacture and sale of this device! Before the salesman returned from his trip, however, a blow, entirely unexpected by Klug and his friends, fell on them from a clear sky. An injunction and a notice of suit was served, not only upon the company, but upon every purchaser of their contrivance. The injunction restrained the buyers from using and the company from manufacturing or selling any further machines, and the suit was for infringement of patent. The device by which the drawer flew open after the keys had been pressed, the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey claimed to be modeled upon their own. The news was wired to Wallingford. He had been waiting for it, and he came home at once, where he found that Maylie had been appointed the local legal representative of the big New Jersey concern; but as this had been a matter of Wallingford's own contriving, he was not nearly so much surprised over it as he might have been. He also found direst consternation in the company's ranks, and himself shook his head sadly when questioned, though he spoke bravely.

"What we have to do," he declared, "is to keep a stiff upper lip and fight it."

They did so. Within a couple of months they had the suit decided in their favor, and Carl Klug was vindicated in the eyes of his friends. Again they were jubilant, again they prepared for an era of commercial triumph; but on the very next day another injunction and suit were brought, and from the very start of this proceeding delays were encountered. The weakest case had been brought first, the stubborn one being held back for a longer and more discouraging fight. When that was over there would be a third suit and a fourth. With their millions of capital and their knowledge of such matters, gleaned from vital struggles with others who had demanded either their money or their business life, they could continue such a fight indefinitely, or until the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company should be choked out of existence.

There never was a more discouraged lot of men than those who met in Carl Klug's shop upon the day after notice of this second suit was brought. Wallingford was the most inconsolable of all. Of course, if the others felt like putting in any more money to fight this company with its millions they could do so; in fact, they ought to do so, but his own business affairs were in such shape that, at the present moment, he could not spare a dollar. He said this in such a hesitant way, with a five-hundred-dollar diamond gleaming from his finger and another from his scarf, that they felt sure he had plenty of capital, but would not risk it further in such a losing fight; and it helped them to realize that all the capital they could command would be but as a wisp of straw to be brushed aside by this formidable giant, which not only could crush them, but had the disposition to do so.

Wallingford left them in this hopeless spirit, and went "back East to look after his other business." That business took him directly to the offices of the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey, and into an immediate conference with the man who had charge of all its patent affairs.

"I have come to sell you the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company," said Wallingford, by way of introduction.

"The Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company?" repeated Mr. Priestly vaguely, trying to convey the impression that the name was unfamiliar to him, and he looked into his desk file. "Oh, yes; we have a suit pending against them."

"Exactly," agreed his caller. "Suit number two is now pending. We won suit number one. We will win suits number two, three, four, five and six, if need be, but it is such a waste of money on both sides. You might just as well buy us out now as later."

Mr. Priestly shook his head without a smile. He was almost gloomy about it, even. He was a small man with gray mutton-chop whiskers, and nothing could exceed his deep gravity. From another file he produced a copy of the patent taken out by Mr. Klug, and of the one just issued to Mr. Wallingford, assignor to Mr. King's company.

"The Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company," he stated, tossing down the papers as if they were too trifling to examine after he had found them, "has nothing whatever that we wish to purchase."

"Oh, yes, it has," Wallingford insisted. "It has two patents, and the absolute certainty of a business that in three years will take trade enough and profits enough away from you to buy the company several times over."

Again Mr. Priestly shook his head sadly.

"We shall have to wait three years to determine that," he hinted, with no sinister intonation whatever to go with the veiled threat. "We must defend our very existence here every day of our lives. If we did not we would have been put out of the business years ago."

"Exactly," again agreed the other. "In your files you have comprehensive reports on Mr. Carl Klug, Mr. Jens Jensen, Mr. Otto Schmitt and the others of the company. You know their small resources to a penny, and you can figure almost to the day how long they can last. But that, Mr. Priestly, is where you have made your error, for these men will soon be out of the game. I have here another list about which you will not need to collect any information, for you have it even in memory, no doubt."

He laid before Mr. Priestly a neatly-typewritten slip, containing barely over half a dozen names. In spite of his excellent facial command, Mr. Priestly could not repress a start of surprise, and he shot across at Mr. Wallingford one quick little glance, which had in it much more of respect than he had hitherto shown.

"J. B. Hammond," read Mr. Priestly, clutching at a straw. "The last name is familiar, but the initials are not."

"No," agreed Wallingford. "By the terms under which he sold out to you, Mr. W. A. Hammond is not to go into the sales recorder business at all. Allow me to read you a letter," and from a pocketbook he took a folded paper.

"My dear Mr. Wallingford," he read. "Under no circumstances could I participate in the manufacture of sales recorders; but my son, Mr. J. B. Hammond, is quite convinced that the Klug patent is both practical and tenable, and he advises me that he is willing to invest up to two hundred thousand dollars, provided a company of at least one million bona fide capitalization can be formed."